Vision

‘Our ambition is to understand the body’s own immune system to develop curative therapies for cancer patients.’

The department of Tumor Immunology belongs to world-wide leading research teams regarding its expertise in Dendritic Cells as master regulators of the immune response. Our expertise ranges from fundamental knowledge of Dendritic Cell immunobiology to the application of this knowledge to exploit these Dendritic Cells as cancer vaccines. Based on our core competences we are able to cover the complete pipeline from bench to bed and back. The importance of our translational work is underscored by the 2011 Nobel Prize for professor Ralph Steinman for the discovery of this remarkable cell and by the election of cancer immunotherapy as the break trough of 2013 in Science. These are exciting times now immunotherapy has taken centre stage in the treatment of cancer.

Mission

The mission of the department of Tumor Immunology is to:

  1. By means of state of the art, interdisciplinary, fundamental and translational research to contribute to a better understanding of the role of the immune system in health and disease.
  2. To use this knowledge to develop new methods to fight cancer, specifically aiming at an improved quality of life.
  3. To train and educate young researchers in the field of immunology in general and tumor immunology in particular.
  4. To disseminate immunological knowledge within Radboudumc and beyond.